Miniature, Low Power Vacuum Pump for Trace Contaminant Monitors

With the ever increasing complexity and duration of International Space Station (ISS) missions, along with planned lunar and Martian missions, the need for more advance capabilities for monitoring the astronaut crew environment becomes ever more critical. Accompanying this is an unprecedented need for reduction in instrumentation size, weight, and power consumption. Recent advances in sensor technology have led to the development of miniature analytical instruments. However, many of these systems require a means of producing a vacuum with pressures under 1 Torr to either supply a rough vacuum or to back a high vacuum pump such as a molecular drag pump or turbo pump. Unfortunately, currently available rough vacuum pumps remain large, heavy, power hungry and unreliable. Lynntech proposes to develop a long-life, robust, low-power, miniature rough vacuum pump for trace gas contaminant monitors.